Month: December 2009

One of the annoyances on FaceBook and Twitter and other places where people put their best foot forward (like church) is the penchant some have to insist that every day is a great day. Everyone knows that it just isn’t true. It isn’t true for anyone. If every day was a great day, if every sandwich or every football game or every date or every Christmas gift was “great,” the word great would cease to exist. It has no meaning. If everything is great, then nothing is great. Don’t you see that? “Great” is a comparative, qualitative condition. Its overuse weakens its meaning until it has no meaning. Every day is NOT a great day. Some days are full of trouble and trials and heartache. You can smile your way through them if that is your personality or way of dealing with adversity. Fine. Smile. But don’t try to shove that lie about how great it is down the world’s gullet. We aren’t buying it. Let me go a step further. Not every year is particularly great, either. Take 2009, for instance. Please…take it, stick it in the history books, and let it go the way of the world. It was, in so many ways, a simply terrible year. Consider… The worst election result in the history of the United States—a result so devastating that it may be the...

Dateline: Somewhere in East Texas, December 10, 2009 The AP, UPI, and Rooters (Arkansas’ state newspaper, not the better known Reuters somewhere over there in the UK) have just learned — on this momentous day when President Barrack Obama is set to receive his Nobel Peace Prize — that Gene Strother (pronunciation unknown), a popular blogger in Texas, has made the bold claim that he favors “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” Learning of Strother’s assertion, the Nobel Peace Prize committee convened in an emergency meeting in Stephenville, Texas (Stockholm’s hotels were already booked by a group committed to heating the planet enough for Climategate to go away) to discuss the blogger’s candidacy and get their votes in before the frigid weather makes travel too inconvenient. After the unprecedented meeting, one source said, “This is a great, great man. He has done so much to bring peace and hope to our world. We can hardly wait until next year to confer upon him this great honor.” The source, who insisted on anonymity, added that he believed that this candidate had done every bit as much to deserve the prize as President Barrack Obama. “Obama said he thought peace was good,” our super-secret source said. “Well, so does Mr. Strother. In fact, he went so far as to say he thought it was ‘really good,’ which, frankly, in my mind,...